We Are Stupid – Episode 20

Some people know all of the rules to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but many, many more do not. Here’s a list of the things we screwed up in our never-ending search for Pathfinder perfection…

I’ll say it again, for the last time – COVER people! +4 to AC, not a d100 roll for miss chance like concealment.

Well, as mentioned before, we recorded a few episodes in a row before we realized this rule was wrong, but we should be through with that nonsense. Cover should be right from here on out.

Moving on, remember when Barron was a feedbag for a monitor lizard? Well, it turns out Troy may have skipped a grapple check to see if the lizard could maintain his grapple.

After we failed to kill the beast, and Barron was sitting with only seven hit points left, he tried to escape and failed. Troy said that when the lizard maintains his grapple, he automatically deals damage. Scary. However, it was implied at the time that in order to maintain the grapple, all that had to happen was the Barron had to fail his check to get out of it. Not so. From the rule book:

If you do not release the grapple, you must continue to make a check each round, as a standard action, to maintain the hold. If your target does not break the grapple, you get a +5 circumstance bonus on grapple checks made against the same target in subsequent rounds. Once you are grappling an opponent, a successful check allows you to continue grappling the foe, and also allows you to…inflict damage to your target equal to your natural attack.

It seems Troy didn’t roll to confirm that his lizard still held on, but just went ahead and automatically rolled for damage that brought Barron to 0 hit points. Jerk.

Now, is it likely that Troy would have succeeded on the check? Absolutely. That +5 bonus against a foe you’re already grappling all but guarantees that you maintain the grapple; and it didn’t kill Barron, or even change the narrative much at all. So, all in all, pretty insignificant, BUT this just goes to show that we all have to keep a closer eye, or ear, on Troy, lest he try to get away with another murder.

Remember Rodrik? Love that guy. This siege has been a terrible distraction from our murder investigation. We really need to get back to that if anyone in the town lives after tonight.